ALP 23.4%
Incumbent MP
Scott McConnell (independent), member for Stuart since 2016.
Geography
Outback. Gwoja covers a massive western part of the Northern Territory. The seat stretches from the Victoria River in the north, runs down the Western Australian border covering western parts of the NT outback, all the way to the South Australian border.
Redistribution
Gwoja is a new name for the seat of Stuart. The seat shifted south, losing its northern edge (abutting Katherine) to Daly and gaining southern areas from Namatjira. These changes reduced the Labor margin from 25.4% to 23.4%.
History
The electorate of Stuart has existed since the first Northern Territory assembly election in 1974. The seat was held by Labor continuously from 1983 to 2012.
Roger Vale won Stuart for the Country Liberal Party from 1974 until 1983, when he moved to the new Alice Springs-based seat of Braitling. He held Braitling until his retirement in 1994.
Labor’s Brian Ede won Stuart in 1983. He held the seat until 1996, leading Labor to the 1994 election.
Peter Toyne won Stuart for Labor at the 1996 by-election. He held the seat for the next ten years, serving as a minister in the Labor government from 2001 to 2006, when he resigned from Parliament.
Labor’s Karl Hampton won the 2006 by-election. He was re-elected in 2008, but lost in a shock result in 2012, with an 18.6% swing electing the Country Liberal Party’s Bess Price.
Price held Stuart for one term, losing in 2016 to Labor’s Scott McConnell. McConnell was excluded from the Labor caucus in 2018 after criticising the government, and he resigned from the party in 2019 to sit as an independent.
Candidates
Sitting independent MP Scott McConnell is running in the seat of Braitling.
- Chansey Paech (Labor)
- Phillip Alice (Country Liberal)
- Kenny Lechleitner (Federation)
Assessment
Gwoja is a very safe Labor seat.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Scott McConnell | Labor | 1,937 | 67.4 | +32.2 | 64.8 |
| Bess Nungarrayi Price | Country Liberal | 590 | 20.5 | -26.2 | 20.9 |
| Maurie Japarta Ryan | Independent | 228 | 7.9 | +7.9 | 6.3 |
| Others | 4.8 | ||||
| Andi Bracey | 1 Territory | 119 | 4.1 | +4.1 | 3.3 |
| Informal | 32 | 1.1 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Scott McConnell | Labor | 2,114 | 75.4 | +30.9 | 73.4 |
| Bess Nungarrayi Price | Country Liberal | 690 | 24.6 | -30.9 | 26.6 |
Booth breakdown
Stuart did not include any ordinary election-day polling places in 2016, nor were any added to the seat in the redistribution. The vast majority of votes were cast through mobile teams, where Labor polled 79%.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Mobile | 79.0 | 2,257 | 72.2 |
| Other votes | 52.1 | 458 | 14.7 |
| Pre-poll | 65.7 | 410 | 13.1 |